Best TNG & DS9 Episodes.

[Big Orange]

OK, inspired by this VOY thread I'll start a "best of thread" for the more popular TNG and DS9.

Top 11 TNG Stories

1) "Galaxy's Child"

2) "All Good Things"

3) "Tapestry"

4) "The Inner Light"

5) "Parallels"

6) "Unification"

7) "Family"

8 ) "The Chain of Command"

9) "The First Duty"

10) "Brothers"

11) "Cause and Effect"

Guilty TNG Pleasures

"Where No Man Has Gone Before"

"The Battle"

"The Game"

"Rascals"

"A Fistful of Datas"

"Phantasms"

[Big Orange]

Top 11 DS9 Stories

1) "Improbable Cause"-"The Die is Cast"

2) "Hard Time"

3) "The Visitor"

4) "Duet"

5) "Statistical Probabilities"

6) "Business as Usual"

7) "In Purgatory's Shadow"-"By Inferno's Light"

8 ) "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"

9) "Trials and Tribble-ulations"

10) "Taking into the Wind"

11) "The Jem'Hadar"

Guilty DS9 Pleasures

"Q-Less"

"Move Along Home"

"Who Mourns for Morn?"

"One Little Ship"

"Past Tense"

[Big Orange]

What are your reasons for those picks?

Sorry I'm late with my reply, but here's why I think my top ten episodes of TNG are top ten (I'll get round to DS9's top ten tomorrow):

"Galaxy's Child" - An episode that defines TNG, for better or worse (exploration and understanding before violence), and it had a very strong emotional effect on me as a child when I first saw it; Patrick Stewart really well conveyed the strong sense of shame and sadness of killing a pregnant alien space whale, even if it was in self-defence, then redeeming himself by saving the alien whale calf.

"All Good Things" - To me the only final episode to a Trek series that genuinely worked and was highly entertaining.

"Tapestry" - Moore's best solo work, it shows how a man's worst mistake in life can define him and his future better achievements. Seize the day.

"The Inner Light" - A cliche' choice, I know, but the story concept is good enough for a long novel.

"Parallels" - Braga's best solo Trek episode and successfully spins a paranoid, thrilling story from a "out there" concept that has more solid scientific/theoretical grounding than those sorry Warp 10 newts. The spacescape full of multiplying Enterprise-Ds is one of the most iconic scenes from TNG, another highpoint from S7.

"Unification" - TNG at the height of its powers and has roots in TOS without feeling like heavy handed fanwank. It features the somewhat underutilised Romulan Star Empire at its best and draws a couple of long running story arcs to a close (a dementia riddled Sarek on his deathbed and Sele getting hers)

"Family" - "The Best of Both Worlds" changed everything for many years to come, but it didn't leave as many long lasting lucid memories the first time round like "Family" did, and was (at the time) brave in showing how Picard being both a Borg captive and Borg perpetrator had deeply scarred him for the rest of his life.

"The Chain of Command" - Being captured and tortured for days by a sadistic Cardassian commandant was arguably a worse experience than being assimilated by the Borg. David Warner as the Cardassian officer was very easily one of the best guest stars in TNG+ era Star Trek.

"The First Duty" - An excellent court room episode and shows Wesley Crusher nearly coming a cropper through his overconfidence.

"Brothers" - The best episode in the long running Lore-Data story arc that ran through almost the entire show.

"Cause and Effect" - A very self-contained episode with the greatest sense of urgency and suspense. It's very rewatchable.

The guilty pleasure episodes are TNG episodes that are widely seen as either subpar or too silly, which I find entertaining and memorable none the less, with one or two major redeeming parts to them. "The Game" is of course a silly episode, but I loved how it mirrored The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and how a gimmicky video game slowly but surely took over the entire ship (with Picard in his ready room dramatically turning around then putting on the alien headset ).

[Nephtys]

I have to strongly disagree with your DS9 picks, for the sole reason that 'In the Pale Moonlight' isn't the #1 best episode of any Star Trek related anything in your book.

[Iroscato]

What's the name of the TNG episode where they rescue a romulan traitor from his own people, he blows his ship up, ends up committing suicide, then climax involves 3 klingon ship decloaking after 2 romulan ships? I can't remember the name but I bloody loved the episode. Can anyone tell me?

[Iroscato]

Thanks, I'm YouTubing that shit
That episode is the best I've seen, probably the best episode of Trek I've seen, in fact.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I loved "Elementary dear Data" and "Ship in a Bottle," simply for the awesomeness of Moriarty and how well he was performed by...whomever it was

Those two were episodes that had pretty much nothing to do with spacecraft and spacetravel, apart from being set on one, they could have just as easily been set on Earth in some Starfleet facility. And for some reason I think that makes them excellent, well thought out episodes.

[JME2]

I loved "Elementary dear Data" and "Ship in a Bottle," simply for the awesomeness of Moriarty and how well he was performed by...whomever it was.

Daniel Davis.

[Iroscato]

In my opinion, DS9 is when Star Trek started to flag. Complete coincidence it around the time Rick Berman took over the franchise, of course... -.-

Having said that, Sacrifice of Angels is a fantastic episode, particularly the 600 Federation vs 1200 Dominion ship battle, which was fucking awesome

Anyone notice how DS9 was the only series with battles of that scale...?

[The Romulan Republic]

Yes.

Though personally, I like a lot of DS9.

Agreed, however, that The Defector is very good. The climax is one of my favorite examples of why Picard is a bad ass.

[Iroscato]

Yes.

Though personally, I like a lot of DS9.

Agreed, however, that The Defector is very good. The climax is one of my favorite examples of why Picard is a bad ass.

'You will still not survive our assault'
'And you will not survive ours'

Only an Englishman could deliver a line like he did

[Stofsk]

In my opinion, DS9 is when Star Trek started to flag. Complete coincidence it around the time Rick Berman took over the franchise, of course... -.-

Uh no, Berman took over around the third season of TNG. DS9 was also one of the better spinoffs, though nowhere near as good as TNG in my opinion and it has some serious failings, but it has several episodes which were gems.

DS9 was also more insulated against Berman's influence, comparatively speaking, considering he put the majority of his attention on Voyager. The creative team on DS9 did their own thing, while Berman and Braga concentrated on bringing Trek down to the mud. If you want to pick a point where Trek started to flag, I can't see why you wouldn't look at Voyager's inception and mishandling.

Having said that, Sacrifice of Angels is a fantastic episode, particularly the 600 Federation vs 1200 Dominion ship battle, which was fucking awesome

Eh... it has good battle porn but honestly, the whole deus ex machina ending leaves me feeling dissatisfied.

Anyone notice how DS9 was the only series with battles of that scale...?

Well yeah, TOS and TNG didn't have the kind of budget nor technical innovations that the DS9 team enjoyed. CGI of the scale you need to depict those sort of scenes wasn't even around when TNG was being made. The TNG effects depended on models.

[Uraniun235]

Put it this way: When they made the first episode of DS9, with that scene at the very beginning depicting part of Wolf 359, that little scene with a handful of starships was a big deal. The Trek production people considered it an ambitious undertaking at the time.

I have to strongly disagree with your DS9 picks, for the sole reason that 'In the Pale Moonlight' isn't the #1 best episode of any Star Trek related anything in your book.

It's been awhile since I saw it, but that strikes me as a bit overrated.

[Stofsk]

Nah uraniun. It's up there with some of the best trek episodes.

It's at the very least one of DS9's best episodes, with 'The Wire' probably being my personal favourite. But 'In the Pale Moonlight' would be a close second. Mainly because of Garak.

He's easily DS9's most interesting character.

[Uraniun235]

I'm not saying it's a bad or not-good episode, I'm just saying "literally best trek material ever produced" is somewhat over the top.

[Stofsk]

I'm not saying it's a bad or not-good episode, I'm just saying "literally best trek material ever produced" is somewhat over the top.

Ok. I agree, there is so much Trek out there that it would be sort of futile to go any one episode is at the top spot.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I think TNG's 'Measure of a Man' was fantastic. It took an issue (making androids) and really did something depth of it. The episode somehow made Data MORE human by examining the things which make him inhuman.

And at the end, when Guinan points out what the logical conclusion of replicating Data would be and Picard gives that closing argument...

Just DAMN.

[JME2]

Here are mine for both series and in no particular order:

TNG

1. The Best of Both Worlds - Part 1

2. The Drumhead

3. Deja Q

4. Tapestry

5. Family

6. The Wounded

7. Relics

8. The Pegasus

9. The Best of Both Worlds - Part 2

10. Devil's Due


DS9

1. In the Pale Moonlight

2. Inquisition

3. Sacrifice of Angels

4. Defiant

5. For the Uniform

6. His Way

7. Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges

8. Civil Defense

9. To the Death

10. Duet

[Gandalf]

JME2, what made you put Inquisition so high on the list?

Here's my top ten for DS9, but in no particular order

• Move Along Home
• Duet
• The House of Quark
• Little Green Men
• Our Man Bashir
• The Bar Association
• In Purgatory's Shadow
• Statistical Probabilities
• Badda Bing, Badda Bang
• Inter Arma, Enim Silent Leges

TNG will come later.

[JME2]

My choices were in no particular order.

As it is, "Inquisition" is one of my favorite DS9 episodes; I loved the concept of Section 31 when it was introduced, that the utopian, idealistic Federation wasn't as squeaky-clean as it pretended. It's also provided the expanded universe plenty of storytelling material, of showing 31's influence in key events.

Also, while Sloane was screwing Bashir, his evidence did make you wonder initially if Bashir had been a Dominion sleeper agent since Season 5.

[Stofsk]

Honestly I disliked the concept of Section 31 massively. It's totally out-of-character (if the Federation could be considered as such), goons like Sloane get around dressed in black (ZOMG evol!!11) and the whole 'Federation isn't squeaky clean' idea has been done before, and more importantly done better, in episodes like 'The Drumhead', 'Pegasus', 'Paradise Lost' and 'In the Pale Moonlight' and pretty much any episode involving the Maquis. They really, really didn't need to invent a whole organisation to make Sloane an effective villain. He would have worked a BAZILLION times better if he was actually just a standard Starfleet officer working in Security/Intel, and due to the long term pressures of his job as well as the desperate straits the Federation was in at the time, he just slips and becomes rogue.

That said, 'Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges' is one of my favourite episodes of DS9, but that doesn't diminish what I wrote above (and having Sloane as a rogue operative would make that episode work even better IMO).

[Skylon]

Honestly I disliked the concept of Section 31 massively. It's totally out-of-character (if the Federation could be considered as such), goons like Sloane get around dressed in black (ZOMG evol!!11) and the whole 'Federation isn't squeaky clean' idea has been done before, and more importantly done better, in episodes like 'The Drumhead', 'Pegasus', 'Paradise Lost' and 'In the Pale Moonlight' and pretty much any episode involving the Maquis. They really, really didn't need to invent a whole organisation to make Sloane an effective villain. He would have worked a BAZILLION times better if he was actually just a standard Starfleet officer working in Security/Intel, and due to the long term pressures of his job as well as the desperate straits the Federation was in at the time, he just slips and becomes rogue.

Section 31 made me roll my eyes back then because, much like a lot of DS9 it felt like something B5 had done, and done better with Psi Corps and Bureau 13 (of course the DS9 crew picked the same two numbers as B5 "1 and 3" and swapped them, just to give everybody else another thing to say "Look! DS9 is ripping B5!")

I don't like what Section 31 has become either. Now the novels tie just about every shady Starfleet Officer to Section 31 (for example, Admiral Cartwright from ST IV and VI) and the Admiral from Insurrection. It's too easy to just say "See! They were part of an evil sub group!"

[Stofsk]

I bet some eu author wrote how Kirk and Spock were acting for section 31 (either knowingly or not) when they did their little heist of a Romulan cloaking device in 'The Enterprise Incident'

[CaptainChewbacca]

I bet some eu author wrote how Kirk and Spock were acting for section 31 (either knowingly or not) when they did their little heist of a Romulan cloaking device in 'The Enterprise Incident'

I'm almost postitive that Section 31 has been retconned into that role in the EU.

[JME2]

I bet some eu author wrote how Kirk and Spock were acting for section 31 (either knowingly or not) when they did their little heist of a Romulan cloaking device in 'The Enterprise Incident'

See the novel Cloak.